Bangalore: We are happy to announce that in our ten year old battle with the church particularly the more conservative Catholic church, we have at last won.
The Catholic church’s Bangalore Archdiocese with 46 high schools (31,000 students) and 56 primary schools (46,000 students) has taken a revolutionary decision to admit Dalit students on a priority basis reducing “merit” admissions to mere 10%.
This is a major reversal of the admission policy by which Christian schools used to admit mostly upper caste students, ignoring their own Dalit Christians.
Dr. Ambrose Pinto, a Jesuit priest and a lecturer at the St. Joseph’s College here, is the brain behind this scheme.
Three crimes against Christ: We had noticed considerable resistance to our proposal not only from the college management but even from the church leadership when the Editor of Dalit Voice addressed principals of all Bangalore city Catholic high schools on Feb. 20, 1991 (“Three crimes against Christ: Failure of church to support Dalit liberation”, DV June 16, 1991).
We are thankful to Fr. Ambrose for persuading the church authorities to fall in line with our proposal and we hope both the Protestant and Catholic church all over India will now follow the lead given by Bangalore.
As per this “revised admission policy”, principals have been directed (1) not to deny admission to SC/ ST students; (2) all applications shall be scrutinised in the following order:
(a) Catholic Christians 50% in science, 60% and above in commerce/arts; (b) SC/ST and Backward Castes and (c) then others. Admission on “merit” will be reduced to 10%. Great.
Fr. Ambrose, who is pressing for a pro-Dalit shift within the church, said, the three Jesuit-run colleges here would also follow the same policy. As Dalits are the “poorest of the poor”, the fees will be as much as the student can afford. If a student can’t afford, the education will be free and on the top of that the student will get scholarship, he said.
The Bangalore archdiocese has 3.5 lakh Catholic Christian population of which the majority are Dalits, Fr. Ambrose said on the basis of the survey he just conducted (Dalit Christians: Socio-Economic Survey, Ambrose Pinto, SJ, 1992, Ashirwad, 30. St. Marks Road, Bangalore-1, Rs. 15).
CBCI direction: Asked if this revolutionary admission policy would be extended to the fashionable Catholic educational institutions like the Mount Carmel College, Shophia High School etc, which take pride in educating upper caste girls, he showed the resolution of the CBCI’s Jan.-7, 1992 resolution which every Catholic was bound to obey.
In our booklet, Christians and Dalit Liberation (Dalit Sahitya Akademy 1987), we had given a six-point answer to the question, “How to make the church revolutionary?” The very first point was “Christian educational institutions must introduce reservations to SC/STs giving preference to Dalit Christians”. (p.23).
We congratulate Archbishop Alphonsus Mathias of Bangalore for boldly implementing the reservation to SC/STs though the decision has come so late. He must now direct the Mount Carmel College etc. to fall in line. Samata Sainik Dal and other Dalit organisations must start an agitation if they fail. An ultimation may be served fixing the date.
Christian education institutions all over India are warned to fall in line as early as possible.
